Writing at the Cooperative 9/27-10/3: Week in Review

We have had another record week for readership and I hope it continues! We also had new authors join us with first time posts this week. Please welcome our new members, Mary Beth, and Edna!

Please if you missed a post or didn’t get a chance to leave a comment, please do! These conversations are essential and are on going! As a Cooperative we can create a powerful and rich counter narrative to the shiny narrative of the current Superman-style reform! Looking forward to another week of great conversations as we live and learn together! Lets make our teaching and learning Public!

David suggested I write about charter schools. The best I can offer right now is an ambivalent primer. While I defend charter schools from attack on principle, I don’t promote them as any kind of one-size-fits-all fix for public education.

Making students accountable for test scores works well on a bumper sticker and it allows many politicians to look good by saying that they will not tolerate failure. But it represents a hollow promise.

Organized, focused, passionate and caring leadership will retain good teachers.

Good schools are those in which there is a common vision and instruction is centered around inquiry and critical thinking.

When teachers work as a team to raise a child and provide rich learning experiences, there will be no room for ineffective teaching.

Provide teachers with professional support along with support for their students and they will be more effective and happier.

Schools should do whatever it takes to ensure that every child leaves their care capable of thinking for him or herself, engaging in discussion and asking questions about everything they see, read and hear.

Money is great when it is carefully invested with students and learning in mind, but money a good school does not make.

Parents need to be educated as well. Teach the whole child and educate the family. The achievement gap starts before children reach school.

Model the cooperation and collaboration that is now an essential skill for success in this world by reaching out to countries whose students are surpassing us and finding out what’s working.

We have been talking about a lot of different topics this week, but at the essence we are trying to share how complex teaching and learning really is. We are trying to get at the unique experience that being a teacher day in and day out, it is a job not easily defined.